Draw your own conclusions from the latest government statistics.
Accident and Emergency (A&E):
- Last year 2.5 million people waited over four hours in A&E, up from 350,000 in 2009/10.
- Just 76.4% of patients at major A&E departments were treated within the 4 hour target in March - well below the 95% standard. This was the worst performance since records began.
Trolley waits:
- 613,957 people waited over 4 hours on trolleys in 2017/18, up from 61,696 in 2009/10.
- 3440 people waited over 12 hours on trolleys in 2017/18, up from 123 in 2011/12.
- 353 patients waited over 12 hours on trolleys in April 2018 and 48,002 patients waited over 4 hours on trolleys, the worst figures ever for the month of April.
Ambulances
- Ambulance crews in England had to look after 186,000 patients, either in the back of their vehicle or in a hospital corridor, for more than least 30 minutes (Nov 2017 – March 2018)
- Nearly 600,000 ambulance arrivals had delays of more than 15 minutes in handing a patient over to hospital A&E staff (Jan-March 2018), when no handover should take this long.
18 week waits
- Waiting lists are now more than 4 million, up from 2.5million in 2010.
- Cancellation of elective operations has seen waiting lists rise by 5% since last year.
- More than 2000 patients had waited more than one year for treatment (Feb 2108).
- 454,342 patients were waiting longer than 18 weeks for elective treatment (Feb 2018).
- The 18 week target for planned treatment has now not been met in two years.
Cancer
- 26,693 people waited over 62 days for cancer treatment in 2017, twice the rate in 2010 when the total was 13,354
- One patient waited 541 days for treatment following a GP referral against a target of 62 days.
- Two-thirds of NHS trusts had at least one patient waiting over six months and 69% had longer waits than in 2010.
Hospital alerts
- The number of hospitals operating at the highest emergency alert level has nearly doubled in the last year.
- More than half of NHS Acute Trusts in England declared emergency measures - an Operational Pressures Escalation Level 4 (OPEL 4), equivalent to the old 'black alerts' - on at least one day (Dec 2017 - March 2018).
